Are adaptive zones important in macroevolution?

适应区在宏观进化中重要吗？

• 批准号: NE/M003736/1
• 负责人: Andy Purvis
• 金额: $ 52.17万
• 依托单位: Natural History Museum
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2015 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FM003736%2F1
• 关键词: adaptive; zones; important; macroevolution

Many researchers think that most of life's staggering diversity may have arisen by a process known as adaptive radiation. In adaptive radiation, an ancestral population gets an evolutionary windfall - for any of several reasons, it finds itself surrounded by a set of empty niches, and so diversifies both taxonomically and ecologically, resulting in a range of species adapted to different niches. This model assumes that niches in nature really are ordered hierarchically into groups known as adaptive zones; niches in the same adaptive zone are sufficiently similar that, given time, a species adapted to any one of them could colonise and adapt to the others.These adaptive zones are among the longest-standing metaphors in evolutionary biology; since it was proposed in 1944, the idea has shaped thinking about evolutionary 'arms races', where competing species are locked in an ongoing struggle of thrust and counterthrust, as well as about adaptive radiation. If the idea is right, it makes predictions about how ecological communities and groups of closely-related species will evolve. Surprisingly, however, we don't really know how important adaptive zones have been in shaping the pattern of evolution. Progress has been difficult because most groups that everyone agrees are adaptive radiations don't have a good fossil record, because many of these groups can only be studied in one place (frustrating scientists' desire to replicate their findings), and because most places on Earth have changed so much over geological time that climate change is a possible explanation for whatever pattern is seen.We propose to investigate the importance of adaptive zones in shaping large-scale evolutionary patterns by focusing on the group with probably the best fossil record of all - a group of single-celled oceanic microbes called planktonic foraminifera - in two of the world's oldest and most stable ecosystems - the North Pacific and North Atlantic subtropical oceanic gyres. Within each gyre, we will take fossil samples every million years back to 23 million years ago; this is made possible by the many expeditions that have drilled the sea bed and brought back layer upon layer of fossils that had accumulated there. We will estimate how abundant each species was at each time slice, and take detailed measurements of their sizes and shapes.Our data will provide an unprecedentedly rich picture of how the group has evolved in this unusually stable system, so we can test whether predictions from adaptive zones are correct. For example, if each adaptive zone provides a different way of being an evolutionary success, then we should see species' size and shape evolve towards those same successful morphologies time and again; and, if species within an adaptive zone compete, then when one became more abundant through time its competitors should have become rarer. If morphology and abundance produce a consistent picture of what the MPF adaptive zones have been, then they will also provide an objective way of delimiting adaptive zones - something that we currently lack.Our data will also help to develop a better understanding of how size and shape evolve along the branches of the evolutionary 'family tree' that links all species, providing answer to longstanding questions: When does morphology change quickly and when slowly? Do species within an adaptive zone affect each other's evolution - and indeed whether they even survive?Most adaptive radiations don't allow researchers to ask such questions (or, even if they do, they force us to make many untestable assumptions). However, though our results couldn't be obtained for those other systems, our findings will be of interest to the researchers working on them: we may identify important processes that their analyses currently omit. As well as telling us about planktonic foraminifera, this project will help us understand how much of life's diversity may have arisen.

许多研究人员认为，大多数生命的惊人多样性可能是由一个被称为适应性辐射的过程产生的。在适应性辐射中，一个祖先种群得到了一笔进化上的意外之财--出于几种原因中的任何一种，它发现自己被一组空的生态位所包围，因此在分类学和生态学上都多样化，导致一系列物种适应不同的生态位。这个模型假设自然界中的生态位真的是按等级划分的，被称为适应区;在同一个适应区中的生态位足够相似，只要给一段时间，适应其中任何一个生态位的物种都可以殖民并适应其他生态位。自1944年提出以来，这一观点塑造了人们对进化“军备竞赛”的思考，即竞争物种在推力和反推力的持续斗争中被锁定，以及适应性辐射。如果这个想法是正确的，它可以预测生态群落和密切相关的物种群体将如何进化。然而，令人惊讶的是，我们并不真正知道适应区在塑造进化模式方面有多重要。进展一直很困难，因为大多数群体，每个人都同意是适应性辐射没有一个良好的化石记录，因为许多这些群体只能在一个地方进行研究（挫败了科学家们复制他们发现的愿望），由于地球上的大多数地方在地质时期发生了如此大的变化，气候变化是对所看到的任何模式的可能解释。在塑造大规模进化模式的过程中，科学家们将注意力集中在可能拥有最好化石记录的群体--一群被称为浮游有孔虫的单细胞海洋微生物--上最古老和最稳定的两个生态系统--北太平洋和北大西洋亚热带海洋环流中。在每个环流中，我们将每隔100万年采集一次化石样本，追溯到2300万年前;这是由于许多探险队在海床上钻孔，并带回了一层又一层堆积在那里的化石。我们将估计每个物种在每个时间段的丰富程度，并详细测量它们的大小和形状。我们的数据将提供前所未有的丰富图片，展示该群体如何在这个异常稳定的系统中进化，因此我们可以测试适应区的预测是否正确。例如，如果每个适应区都提供了不同的进化成功方式，那么我们应该看到物种的大小和形状一次又一次地朝着相同的成功形态进化;如果适应区内的物种竞争，那么当一个物种随着时间的推移变得更加丰富时，它的竞争对手应该变得更加稀少。如果形态学和丰度能提供一幅关于MPF适应区的一致画面，那么它们也将提供一种客观的方式来界定适应区--这是我们目前所缺乏的。我们的数据还将有助于更好地理解大小和形状是如何沿着联系所有物种的进化“家谱”的分支沿着进化的，为长期存在的问题提供答案：什么时候形态变化快，什么时候变化慢？在适应区内的物种是否会影响彼此的进化--甚至它们是否会生存下来？大多数适应性辐射不允许研究人员提出这样的问题（或者，即使他们这样做，他们迫使我们做出许多无法验证的假设）。然而，尽管我们的结果无法在其他系统中获得，但我们的发现将对研究它们的研究人员感兴趣：我们可以识别他们的分析目前忽略的重要过程。除了告诉我们关于浮游有孔虫的信息，这个项目还将帮助我们了解生命的多样性可能已经出现了多少。

项目成果

Factors affecting consistency and accuracy in identifying modern macroperforate planktonic foraminifera

影响现代大孔浮游有孔虫鉴定一致性和准确性的因素

• DOI: 10.5194/jm-37-431-2018
• 发表时间: 2018
• 期刊: Journal of Micropalaeontology
• 影响因子: 2
• 作者: Fenton I

Landscape complexity and functional groups moderate the effect of diversified farming on biodiversity: A global meta-analysis

景观复杂性和功能群调节多样化农业对生物多样性的影响：全球荟萃分析

• DOI: 10.1016/j.agee.2022.107933
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment
• 作者: Sánchez A

The impact of Cenozoic cooling on assemblage diversity in planktonic foraminifera.

• DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0224
• 发表时间: 2016-04-05
• 期刊: Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
• 作者: Fenton IS;Pearson PN;Dunkley Jones T;Farnsworth A;Lunt DJ;Markwick P;Purvis A
• 通讯作者: Purvis A

Environmental Predictors of Diversity in Recent Planktonic Foraminifera as Recorded in Marine Sediments.

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0165522
• 发表时间: 2016
• 期刊: PloS one
• 影响因子: 3.7
• 作者: Fenton IS;Pearson PN;Dunkley Jones T;Purvis A
• 通讯作者: Purvis A